Maundy Thursday
April 5, 2012
Trinity Church
Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
The greatest archetype, the greatest image or symbol, for conscious human life and experience is the idea of the journey.
You have heard me speak often of “the spiritual journey” precisely because I think that is the best, clearest, and most universal way of naming what our life as Christians is all about. Everyone of us has come from somewhere to be here now. Everyone of us has changed from who we once were to who we now are. If that is not true, then those for whom it is not true are the walking dead who have come from nowhere and are going nowhere. It we are conscious and if we are followers of Jesus, then we are on a journey. None of us have yet arrived at where we are ultimately going. None of us have become what we shall ultimately be. We are on the way. You cannot follow without going somewhere. We have a destination. As Christians, our journey is God-ward, that is that we are heading from where we are to the ever deepening presence and knowledge of God. Not only is the direction of our journey God-ward, but according to Paul, it is much more specifically a journey toward our becoming like Christ. He says that our journey is toward “maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Eph 4:13
So each of us is on a journey. As Christians we are asked to be on that journey consciously, intentionally, and in the company of others.
For some the journey of life has been hard much of the time; and for all of us it has been – or will be – hard some of the time. Each of us, when all is said and done will bear the wounds and scars of mistakes made, missteps taken, paths we have followed that left us worse off than when we began. Perhaps some of us can identify with Dante who begins his great poem by saying,
“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost . . . I cannot say clearly how I entered there, So drowsy with sleep had I grown at that hour when first I wandered off from the true way.”
He has journeyed down the wrong road and isn’t even sure when he began to stray or how he wound up such a lost human being.
Maybe you too have known that moment. When did the relationship start to go bad? When did the career turn out to be such a dead end? When did your spiritual life become so dry or shallow, so “of no real use” in guiding your heart and your mind and your strength? When did the lostness begin? And -- much more importantly -- how do you find again the right path for your journey?
Tonight Jesus gives us help along our way. Tonight he gives us food to strengthen us for our travels – our trials and travails. Tonight we are given the gift of the Bread and Wine we need to refresh us from the struggle that has brought us this far, the Bread and Wine we need to feed our pilgrim spirits for the path ahead. And it is not just any Bread and Wine, but the Bread and Wine that causes us to remember him and his unshakeable, unalterable, uncompromising, unconditional love for each of us. Tonight we receive the gift of Bread and Wine that allow us to re-member him, that is to make his very human body present to us. We get to re-collect him, to collect him again, gathering him up into our arms – and then take him into our selves, so that taking him into ourselves we become what he is – God’s eternal presence in the world. God present within our own bodies so that we may be God’s presence within the body of the world.
But that is not all. Tonight Jesus strips off his robe and, in an act of breat-taking humility, he kneels before his friends and washes their feet. I am sure it made them even more uncomfortable that it clearly makes most of us since so few are likely to be courageous or trusting or perceptive enough to receive that same service at the hands of our brothers and sisters in Christ when, in just a few minutes I and others will kneel before you and offer to be your servants.
Be that as it may, the gift is given. And what it says is true: Jesus knows where your feet have been. He knows the journey you have been on. He knows the blisters and scars your travels have left on your wounded, frightened, and too often exhausted souls. And to him it is all acceptable. Tonight he kneels before you, bathes your feet with soothing water and fragrant oil, blessing the path you have taken, wherever it has taken you; blesses and honors the choices you have made that have led you here to him tonight; blesses and honors all the missteps and lost hours of your entire life. All of this is acceptable, and tonight he washes and honors and blesses it all. Making it all the source of wisdom gained through often painful experience – so that, as the 12-step tradition puts it, “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it,” We may even “see how our experience can benefit others.” (Big Book of AA)
As we continue our journey to the cross and beyond we can now do so knowing that God knows our path, God has always been and always will be our companion. God has not ever, does not now, and never will do anything other than honor who we are and where we have been, even as he is ever ready to be our guide toward a path that is right.
I was recently stunned into inner silence by the signature phrase someone included on an e-mail message to me. Every message he sends, in fact, has these as his final words: "Always be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." We all need to know that these words are true. “Always be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Tonight we can luxuriate in the assurance that Jesus knows the battle each of us is waging. And, kneeling before us because he loves us, he will ultimately and always be kind. As you hear me say almost every Sunday, quoting Psalm 145, “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness.”
Thanks be to God.
